Speaking of the Waking Up trope...

HoneyBadger · Mar 11, 2012

So, this amazing stupid book of mine is 1st-person-very-recent-past, it opens with the MC waking up *and* going about his stupid day.

Here is the problem (yes, yes, we're all speshul uneek snowflaykes and our problems are all just so very unique):

I have no idea how to change it. The structure of the entire book means the only possible way it could open is with his waking up. (Long story short- 3 first person POVs, each get a chapter at a time, in strict rotating order because I am insane, and each chapter chronicles 24 hours.) He doesn't learn that his parents are dead for like 3 hours (about 5-6 pages- I'm cutting like 90% of his boring shit) after waking up.

Is this one of those "if the story needs it, throw all caution to the wind" things? Or should I just burn the whole thing in a fire? Or both? Though how to query a burning MS is a whole other question...

Marian Perera · Mar 11, 2012

HoneyBadger said:
He doesn't learn that his parents are dead for like 3 hours (about 5-6 pages- I'm cutting like 90% of his boring shit) after waking up.

What happens in those 5-6 pages?

jjdebenedictis · Mar 11, 2012

If it works, it works.

The real issue with starting with a character waking up is the technique is usually used by authors who don't know where to start their story.

If you know this is exactly where the story must start, then I don't think it's a problem.

To paraphrase a Terry Pratchett character: Rules are there to make you think before you break them.

HoneyBadger · Mar 11, 2012

Queen of Swords said:
What happens in those 5-6 pages?

He brushes his teeth and walks his dog.

He also pees.

I'm not kidding. At least he doesn't look in a mirror...

(In a few days I'll throw the opening on SWY. I want to polish it up first, though.)

Marian Perera · Mar 11, 2012

I'm not sure I'd stick around through five pages of someone going through their everyday routine. Unless it was in a Hitch-hiker's Guide way - the MC brushes his teeth, notices a bulldozer waiting outside his house, gets ready to walk the dog and stops. Something like that. Otherwise the daily routine may not be essential.

Orianna2000 · Mar 11, 2012

This may just be me, but I would rather read about the moment the MC's life changes. I don't want to read 5-6 pages about him waking up, peeing, walking the dog, etc. Not unless those actions somehow have a direct bearing on the plot.

If you must chronicle 24 hours . . . and personally, I doubt anyone's going to notice if one character gets 20 hours instead of 24 . . . I would suggest letting his day extend further, so you can cut off the boring bits at the beginning.

Or, you could skip past all the boring stuff by saying something like:

When John Doe woke up that morning, he'd no idea he would shortly be standing in the basement of the hospital, waiting for the doctor to admit him to the morgue so he could identify his dead parents. He ate his cornflakes blissfully unaware that at that same moment, Rick Morgus was tossing back his third beer of the morning. He walked the dog without knowing that Rick Morgus hit three trashcans in a row as he pulled out of his driveway. And as he showered, he remained utterly ignorant of the fact that his parents were driving down Highway 59, on their way to church, just as Rick Morgus turned left without waiting for a green light. The phone call came as he finished shaving--and he would forever associate the smell of Old Spice with the memory of learning his parents were dead.

HoneyBadger · Mar 11, 2012

Good thoughts everyone!

Oriana, it's impossible without changing everything, including the entire concept of the MC, but thanks!

Okay, hold on- lemme eat my cold spaghetti and I'll post the opening in SYW in a bit. It's kind of one of those you'll get it when you see it things.

Layla Nahar · Mar 11, 2012

One of my favorite books begins with someone waking & beginning a more or less routine day. By about p3 things change, but I can vouch for at least one published novel that begins this way.

(ps - it's not the MC but an mC - that's a little bit of music shorthand - any Berklee cats out there?)

WriteMinded · Mar 11, 2012

I just read a book - a published book - part of a series book - that starts with the heroine having a dream, waking up, little burst of backstory, and somewhere in the first few pages, she looks into a mirror. Oh yeah, there's a prologue, too.

I laughed and read on. We are told all this stuff is a no, no. That it's cliche, you can't use it, and no one will publish it if you break the ~~rules~~, uh, guidelines. Writers hate it, but I'd wager that reader's don't mind. Until I started writing, I never took notice.

If it can't start any other way, it can't start any other way. I don't mind reading a few lines of what an MC does with his a.m.

You didn't give us enough information for us to suggest alternatives.

Orianna2000 said:
Or, you could skip past all the boring stuff by saying something like:

Your quote - sorry - I couldn't grab it - is not in 1st person. It's omni. Writing in 1st or even close 3rd requires a different approach.

HoneyBadger · Mar 11, 2012

Thanks everyone! Piece is up now.

I'm going to go set my head on fire.

The Lonely One · Mar 11, 2012

HoneyBadger said:
He doesn't learn that his parents are dead for like 3 hours (about 5-6 pages- I'm cutting like 90% of it) after waking up.

Is this one of those "if the story needs it, throw all caution to the wind" things? Or should I just burn the whole thing in a fire? Or both? Though how to query a burning MS is a whole other question...

I like the idea. Is there any way the audience could know the parents are dead (dramatic irony)? Or would the POV not permit it?

Domino Derval · Mar 11, 2012

I'm honestly a bit tired of the thought that BIG THINGS need to happen from page one. I like to get to know my characters a little if I'm going to be expected to care about them. I like to know what their world is like, so I can tell why the BIG THINGS are a departure from the norm.

HoneyBadger · Mar 11, 2012

The Lonely One said:
I like the idea. Is there any way the audience could know the parents are dead (dramatic irony)? Or would the POV not permit it?

Yeah, I actually have a line that's something like, "No one told me my parents were dead yet" in the first or second 'graph.

Domino- I agree. If there's a such category as off-beat downmarket literary, that's what this is, so I'm less concerned about BANG BOOM ACTION than establishing voice and character, but still.

blacbird · Mar 11, 2012

As a reader, the "waking up" trope (cliché, if you want to call it that) bothers me a great deal less than the "explosion in the first sentence" trope. Hell, Nick Sagan recently used the waking-up thing with great success in Idlewild.

caw

BethS · Mar 11, 2012

HoneyBadger said:
He brushes his teeth and walks his dog.

He also pees.

You're going to have great difficulty getting that past an agent.

My suggestion would be to start with some small but engaging and meaningful problem he has to solve to until he finds out about his parents. And don't have him wake up. Have him already awake and confronting, or about to confront, that problem on page one.

The Lonely One · Mar 11, 2012

I think as long as you're building the character immediately, interwoven with whatever s/he is doing, and it all of course falls apart when the news hits, then it's just fine.

That line about "no one told me my parents were dead" or something similar is exactly what I was talking about. I think if the audience knows, and the character doesn't yet, it creates something potentially intriguing to watch.

BethS · Mar 11, 2012

HoneyBadger said:
Yeah, I actually have a line that's something like, "No one told me my parents were dead yet" in the first or second 'graph.

OK, I just read through your first chapter.

It's great that you have that line about the parents in there, but the thing is, at that point I started skimming to see if anything important was happening before he finds out about their deaths. I don't think you want your reader skimming to get to the important part. You want them interested in what's happening right then, right there.

The scene gives the feeling of being very busy and snappy, but nothing actually seems to be happening.

One other thing. "Said" is way overused. You don't need She said, I said, she said, I said, he said, I said, she said. Use it far more sparingly. Use action to tag dialogue instead.

My two cents.

HoneyBadger · Mar 11, 2012

Thanks!

The said tags are a (gratingly poor) style choice.

The other two POV guys are tagged in a far more invisible way.

kuwisdelu · Mar 11, 2012

I commented in your SYW thread.

dangerousbill · Mar 11, 2012

HoneyBadger said:
He also pees.

...and then wakes up?

Architectus · Mar 11, 2012

I took the time to read what you posted of your story. I actually like the character, but I don't see why you must start with waking up. You can show the odd behavior by starting with her? sticking the note on the drawer.

Marya · Mar 12, 2012

Also commented in your SYW thread. The parents are key for me, the relationship with the parents, the creepiness or horror or suspicious circumstances.

I know it is a problem for those of us (like me) less experienced in writing fiction -- my characters are always waking up or falling asleep or waking from dreams (the ultimate no-no) but I like the liminal feel of characters moving between unawareness and fright or different kinds of awareness or the irrational. Every now and again it works.

bearilou · Mar 12, 2012

dangerousbill said:
HoneyBadger said:

He also pees.

Click to expand...

...and then wakes up?

You made me snork out loud. :tongue

HoneyBadger · Mar 12, 2012

Thanks, everyone!

His chapters always start with waking up. The primary conflict for Arthur is that his sister grows increasingly more concerned with his ability to successfully care for himself, as he makes really terrible, dangerous, and/or embarrassing choices. If he wants to go away to college (and later, not get shipped off to an assisted living compound) he has to change his ways.

Being a literally minded person, he's not able to understand that his ways and routines are more than having his socks in the right drawer, so starts changing all the wrong things.

Thank you all very much!

brianjanuary · Mar 12, 2012

Start with the hook that jumps the reader right into the story. That's the essential problem with books that start with waking up or a view of the room someone's in, or pages of description and backstory--there's no story!

When Gregor Samsa wakes up, he's been transormed into a giant insect. Now there's a hook!

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